Must sex be a part of sex stings?

It's legal in this state, but some experts say it's unethical -- and unnecessary.

September 23, 2007|By Daniel Patrick Sheehan and Arlene Martinez Of The Morning Call

O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and prosecutor, said many states and municipalities have attacked massage parlor prostitution civilly by imposing regulations -- for example, requiring massage rooms to have windows so the activity inside can be observed -- and licensing requirements on massage therapists.

Forced into prostitution

Mary Anne Layden, a clinical psychologist with the University of Pennsylvania Health System who served as an expert witness at the Shiatsu hearing, said the debate over how prostitution investigations are conducted obscures a far more serious issue: the exploitation of women whose backgrounds, research shows, almost always include sexual and physical trauma.

Most prostitutes are forced into the lifestyle when they are little more than children and about 70 percent suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result -- a higher percentage than researchers have found among soldiers at war, she said.

Layden said the most effective way to stem prostitution and related crimes such as human trafficking is to "flip" the standard approach by treating prostitutes as victims -- giving them psychotherapy and job training instead of jail -- and targeting johns as criminals.

In Sweden, this approach was been credited with reducing prostitution by 50 percent within a decade. Conversely, Germany and Australia saw massive increases in prostitution after legalizing the practice, with increasing numbers of children forced into the lifestyle to meet the demand.

"You have to aim at the john," Layden said. "Until we target the real source of the problem, the demand end, we're not going to make any headway."